Kidani Medicare trip

jekjones1558

Always happy at Disney
Joined
Oct 1, 2000
A little back story: *DH and I usually stay at BWV. We love BW view and it is easy for DH, who is in a scooter, to get to 2 parks without the hassle of loading the scooter onto a bus or car. *This trip I am celebrating my 65th birthday by spending 5 days solo at WDW. I thought it the perfect chance to try Kidani and I hope to be able to look at an HA 1 bedroom here in case I can convince DH to give Kidani a try someday.
I left Mpls. At 7:30 AM and landed at MCO at 11:30 Florida time. Got my luggage and the rental car. All was going well until I took exit 3 off of 417 and found it was an unmanned toll booth. I picked up an envelope to mail a check (for $0.50!). The alarm sounded as I left the toll booth. I should have been prepared with change. We always use exit 6, where there is no booth. Poor planning on my part.
I was greeted by name by Stefan at the lobby. The front desk CM noted that I had requested a lower floor near the lobby but had been assigned 4th floor. She called and got me a 3rd floor room right near the lobby and it was ready. Went to Target to get some beer and breakfast stuff and then unpacked and had a sandwich I picked up at Target. Here it is only 3:30 PM and I am trying to upload photos. My room is great but the wifi is a PITA. I guess I am going to have to pay for cell data on my iPad if I want to avoid the hassles. Come on, Claire, FIX THE WIFI!!! I will try to post photos later. Love your resort, Kidani owners!

Sent from my iPad
 
Okay. Here goes an attempt to post photos. I took pictures of my studio to share with those who have not stayed here. I do miss having a washer and dryer but otherwise this is fine for 1 person.

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Toilet is in a separate room:
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Big safe. I put my iPad in it to show the size.
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Armoire:
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View from balcony:
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A visitor below my balcony:
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Frig. Yes, there is room for both beer and a stand up spot for wine!
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Three bags of coffee!!!
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Both a can opener and corkscrew.
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Real glasses.
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A tortoise from my balcony:
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More visitors!
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Last night I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and go to MK for MSEP and Wishes. I didn't take photos, since I already have so many from other trips, except I took this one to honor my beloved Irish mother. *I lost her a year and a half ago. *Miss you so much, Ma!

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This morning it was up and at 'em for rope drop at DHS. I rode TSM twice and saw Mermaid also by 10:15. Low crowds!!!

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I wanted to try the Cobb Salad at Wolfgang Puck Express so went to DTD after seeing Muppets and the 11:30 Beauty and Beast show. The salad was excellent and the restaurant was not crowded (unlike Earl, which was mobbed). *I think $14 was a little overpriced, however.*

Headed back to Kidani to see if I could tour a HA 1 bedroom for DH. I was lucky to see one and I think it will work great. It does have the higher toilet in the master that DH needs. *If anyone wants to see photos you can post here and I will post them.

I have read questions on the boards about cribs in DVC rooms. I saw this one in the hall so I took a picture:

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This resort is lovely. I especially like this light in the lobby:

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I am heading to DHS for Fantasmic but will close with a few more shots from my balcony:

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Sent from my iPad
 
:) Excellent Trip report!! We left Kidani on Friday 5/11 and had a blast. It was so good seeing my OL "Duffy" again ;). Can't wait to hear more about your trip. :wave2:
 
Sounds like you're having a great time! I'm loving all the photos. I'm super envious of the solo trip. I've always wanted to try WDW on my own.
 


What a wonderful way to celebrate your special birthday! Thanks for sharing it with us. :)
 
Enjoying your trip report. I think an occaisional solo trip sounds like lots of fun, so looking forward to seeing all of your activities.
 
Give tech support a call about the wifi. We did that on our last stay at BWV and they were able to do something to address the problem. They seemed to appreciate knowing who was having problems with the service so they could fix the problems. (That was the first week the service was available. They're probably tired of hearing from all of us by now!)

We were at Kidani a week ago in a room a bit further down the south wing from your room and had usable wifi service at all times of the day. According to www.speedtest.net we were getting 1Mbps down and .25Mbps up at all times which is not great but it was fast enough for checking email and reading and responding to posts here without too much delay.

If you check your upload and download speeds with speedtest.net, I would be interested to know if your numbers are significantly different than what we experienced last week.

Thanks for posting that photo of the tortoise. I didn't know they had one at Kidani. We were there for a week and never saw it!
 
Loving your trip report. Thanks for posting the pictures of the animals. We stayed at Kidani in January 2011 and I sure miss it. We had such a great time and the kids and I loved the rooms.

Great picture in remembrance of your Mom. I lost my Mom a year and a half ago as well and I miss her so much so I know how you feel. :hug:

Looking forward to reading more about your travels. :goodvibes
 
Give tech support a call about the wifi. We did that on our last stay at BWV and they were able to do something to address the problem. They seemed to appreciate knowing who was having problems with the service so they could fix the problems. (That was the first week the service was available. They're probably tired of hearing from all of us by now!)

We were at Kidani a week ago in a room a bit further down the south wing from your room and had usable wifi service at all times of the day. According to www.speedtest.net we were getting 1Mbps down and .25Mbps up at all times which is not great but it was fast enough for checking email and reading and responding to posts here without too much delay.

If you check your upload and download speeds with speedtest.net, I would be interested to know if your numbers are significantly different than what we experienced last week.

Thanks for posting that photo of the tortoise. I didn't know they had one at Kidani. We were there for a week and never saw it!

Tonight I have better service. I have Speedtest app on my iPad and tonight I got .95 down and .19 up. This morning service kept cutting out. Uploading photos was impossible so I just bought data for a month and LTE worked fine. I will see if wifi is better now. Maybe I just hit a bad period this morning.
 
Last post for the day. I have to be up early for my Wild Trek tour! *
Loved this topiary outside DHS:

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Couldn't pass up The Great Movie Ride even if it is totally hokey. This is not the best scene but it is one of my favorite movies:

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Fantasmic had a few changes since I last saw it: torches on ALL FOUR canoes stayed lit (I can't remember that ever happening before) and there were only 2 princess pontoons (Belle and Beast pontoon was missing). I was worried that the Steamboat Willie boat of characters would be radically different as someone posted on these boards but apparently that was an aberration because all was well.*

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And of course Mickey made everything right.*

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Hope the weather cooperates for my Trek!


Sent from my iPad
 
Have a great time Jean. Can't wait to hear all about your Wild Africa Trek tour today. How much was it this time of year? Any discounts?
 
What great photos! Thanks for posting them, and I love reading your report!

Bobbi:goodvibes
 
Hope you are having a great time on the TREK today! We loved it.

Don't forget to take advantage of the nightly offerings in the Kidani library. There is always a presentation by one of the exchange personel from different parts of Africa. It is usually around an hour long and is poorly attended, so you get lots of personal attention and can ask lots of questions. We enjoy them so much, we have been known to go over to Kidani and take them in even when we aren't staying there!:thumbsup2 FYI, they also have a "drum circle" before the presentation that is rather loud and more for the younger set.
 
Nice photos, thanks for posting. They are getting me excited for our June trip to Kidani.
 

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